POLYESTER (1981)

"Marry him?! Are you kidding? I'm getting an abortion and I can't wait!"

Francine Fishpaw (Divine) is not having a good week.  Not only does her pornographer husband leave her for a younger (and less hairy) woman, but her mentally insane teenage son turns out to be the notorious "Foot Stomper" (who's been going around town stomping on women's feet) and her teenage daughter has gotten knocked up by a local juvenile delinquent (and is so desperate to get an abortion that she's been hitting herself in the stomach with a hammer and throwing herself, stomach-first into pointy objects)...but not everything is bad news bears in Francine's life, because she's also been swept off her stinky feet by the super sexy Todd Tomorrow (Tab Hunter)!

POLYESTER might have a bigger budget and better production values than previous John Waters' films, but it's still pretty messed up.  Murder, forced underage prostitution, public humiliation, cocaine, abortion, blasphemy, human trafficking, foot fetish, sexual assault, physical assault, elderly abuse, cross-dressing, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, pornography, adultery, underage drinking, underage drug use, mental illness, attempted suicide, nuns.  In other words...it's awesome!

Plus, it's Edith Massey and Cookie Mueller's last John Waters film, so what is there not to love?

A SNAKE OF JUNE (2002)

"Am I in hell?"

Told with the sexual tension of a fistful of sun-dried aardvark shit being thrown against a wall, A SNAKE OF JUNE tells the surreal and blue-coloured story of a creepy dude (who might or might not have a robotic vacuum hose for a penis) who is stalking an unhappily married couple.  The wife is extremely sexually repressed (it's never explained why, but, I suspect, it has something to do with the fact that when she finally does have an orgasm...it sounded more like she was giving birth to a fully grown porcupine, than having pleasure.).  The husband is a weak-dick nerd who has no idea how to fuck properly.  It's sad.

Anyway, so this stalker dude blackmails the wife into doing solo sexual stuff in public and then kidnaps and beats the husband into finally being more manly...or something.  I don't know.  I watched the film twice and I felt like I was drifting in and out of consciousness both times.  Maybe it had something to do with all the sleeping pills I took, but who knows.  Anyway, ASOJ wasn't terrible, it just wasn't my cup of tea (at the time I watched it).  I normally like Shinya Tsukamoto more than this.  I kinda wish A SNAKE OF JUNE had been even weirder and more frantic.  Different casting of the married couple wouldn't have hurt things either.  They were both boring to look at.

Worth a viewing for fans of avant-garde cinema.

MULBERRY STREET (2006)

Filmed with what looks to be a camera found at the bottom of a swamp, MULBERRY STREET is the yawn-inducing tale of the residents of a crappy NYC apartment building during a city-wide ratpire* attack.  That could be exciting, except for the fact...the script fucking sucks.  First off, the intro/character build-up stuff takes forever and is slow as fuck.  A person of normal intelligence would bail on this turkey in like 5 minutes, but if, for whatever reason (like you were tied to a chair), you did stick around until the action starts...your only reward is poorly choreographed action scenes, more dim green-coloured lighting than Kermit the Frog's sex dungeon and a shit ending.

YouTube-level special effects, jerky camera movements, unnecessarily grainy picture, zero gore, zero tits, zero scares, lame acting...MULBERRY STREET fucking blows.  I could go on, but I don't even give a fuck.

Outside of laughing at it with friends, I can't think of a single reason at all to watch MULBERRY STREET.  It's boring piece of fuck movie that made me rage so much that my friend was clutching his sides laughing.  Motherfucker had me watch it twice just so he could listen to me bitching.  That ain't cool.

* the word "ratpire" is never used in the film.  I just made that shit up.